Robert J. Morgan - Angel Answer Book

The Angel Answer Book

2015 by Robert J. Morgan

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living translation. 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7180-3251-7

ISBN-13: 978-0-7180-3277-7 (eBook)

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Contents

Introduction
All Night, All Day

W hen my friend Richard Hendrix was ten years old, he lived in the small coal mining townof Carbon Hill, Alabama. The Hendrix home sat on the edge of a forest and had a spanningporch where his mother and grandmother worked peeling apples or snapping beans.Richard loved to play with his friends in the nearby woods, especially around a large,overturned pine tree.

One day, as the family sat on the porch, a stranger approached. Since Carbon Hillwas a small town, everyone knew the neighbors. The man, however, was unknown tothem. He displayed Native American features and was toting a rifle. He asked if hecould walk around and hunt snakes.

Mama ordinarily would have told him to come back when Dad was home, Richard toldme, but for some reason she gave him permission. It seemed as though he belongedthere; we felt safe in his presence.

The stranger walked straight down to the fallen pine tree as though he knew wherehe was going. It was a distance away, out of sight from the house, and no one hadmentioned the spot to him. But a few moments later, the air cracked with rifle shots.Shortly, the stranger reappeared with three large rattlesnakes. The largest had twentyrattlers. He had shot them where the children would soon have been playing. The manturned and walked back down the road and was never seen again.

We asked about him, said Richard, but nobody knew him, and nobody in the neighborhoodsaw him come or go. If any of us had been bitten by one of the snakes, we wouldnthave survived long enough to get to the hospital twenty miles away. Ive always wonderedif it was a coincidence, or if we saw an angel without realizing it. I might notbe alive today if not for this mysterious stranger showing up unannounced at ourhouse that summer day in 1960.

Coincidence? Mysterious stranger? Or angel? My files are bulging with stories likethis, and many of them appear for the first time in print in this book. Some of thesemysterious strangers are undoubtedly ordinary humans who showed up at just the righttime in the providence of God. But I believe that others are angels, for the Biblespeaks openly of their reality and activity in our world. Hebrews 13:2 says, Donot forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertainedangels without knowing it.

This book represents a long-term effort on my part to understand the subject of angelsin the teachings of the Bible and the story of Christ, in Christian and missionaryhistory, and in everyday life. Im not a speculator or enthusiast. Im a Bible teacherdevoted to rightly dividing the Word of God (2 Timothy 2:15 NKJV). Theres no needto be fanciful or fanatical on this subject, for the Bible provides enough soliddata for a satisfying understanding of these mysterious creatures. Im not sureIve ever seen an angel, but Im not sure I havent. In these pages, I want to showyou from Scripture and from a handful of first-person accounts what Gods angelsdoand what they do for us. As the hymnist said:

All night, all day. Angels watching over me, my Lord.

A ngels are intelligent beings created by God as part of His spiritual realm. Thewordangelmeans messenger, and they were created to serve and glorify their Creator. The Biblerefers to them as ministering spirits, heavenly hosts, and holy ones (Hebrews1:14; Psalm 103:21; Jude 1:14).

T he Bible consistently affirms the existence of angels. They appear in its pagesnaturally,personally, and frequently. From Genesis to Revelation, the biblical writers weaveangels in and out, and the teachings about angels are consistent and cohesive, rationaland logical.

Angelology is a therapeutic subject for our souls. The Lord must have wanted us toponder the marvel of angels if He spoke of them so frequently. Colossians 3:2 tellsus to set our minds on things above, not on things of earth. The things above certainlyinclude the angelic world. Martin Luther said, The acknowledgment of angels is needfulin the church. Therefore godly preachers should teach them logically.... Theyshould show what angels are.... They must speak touching their function....In this sort ought we to teach with care, method, and attention, touching the sweetand loving angels.

British historian Thomas B. Macaulay described the Puritans as people whose mindshad derived a peculiar advantage from the daily contemplation of superior beingsand eternal interests.

W ere curious about angels because angels are curious creatures. Thousands of books,stories,and speculative accounts have been written to describe their alleged existence andactivities. But there is oneand only oneauthoritative source of information wecan fully trust: the Bible. Even the book youre reading right now is accurate onlyto the degree it presents the biblical facts.

The Word of God is our primary source of informationthe only authoritative and infallibleoneon the intriguing subject of angels. Its easy to take flying leaps of fancyon this theme, but what does the Bible say?

That was my standard when I worked my way through every book of the Bible, trackingdown each reference to angels until I came to the grand crescendo of angelic activitypermeating the book of Revelation. I found 234 specific passages about good angelsand another 278 times when God is referred to as the Lord of hosts (hosts beingthe angelic armies of heaven). Angels are referenced in thirty-nine books of theBiblenineteen in the Old Testament and twenty in the Newand the range of angelicactivity spans the Scriptures from Genesis 3:24 to Revelation 22:16. As John Hunterput it, We can as easily think of summer without flowers as of the Bible withoutangels.